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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Pill to cure ambulance of ferrying ills-Sobhana K

Pill to cure ambulance of ferrying ills-Sobhana K

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published Published on Jun 18, 2012   modified Modified on Jun 18, 2012

The government will soon come out with an ambulance code to check the practice of vans and goods vehicles being turned into makeshift and ill-equipped ambulances that pose a risk to patients’ lives and limbs.

By the end of this month, a committee that includes doctors is expected to finalise the draft of the national ambulance code, which will specify requirements from design to equipment to personnel. (See chart)

“Most ambulances in India are now built on a goods vehicle’s chassis. Just about any roadside mechanic can assemble an ambulance; no standards have been laid down,” said an official of the road transport and highways ministry, which is overseeing the exercise.

The code will be notified under the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, which means that an ambulance will have to be manufactured as an ambulance. It will classify ambulances into four categories: first responder, patient transport vehicle, basic life support ambulance and advanced life support ambulance.

The first responder will not transport patients. Rather, it will carry a doctor or a paramedic to a sick person’s home or an accident site to treat the patients and decide whether they need to be ferried to hospital.

Any vehicle equipped to treat and stabilise a patient on site will do, but the government hopes this will mainly take the form of medics-on-motorcycles so they can reach congested areas. So far, the doctor-on-wheels idea has been attempted in some Indian cities but without much success.

The first responders will be a far cheaper option if it turns out that the patient need not be taken to hospital, said a senior doctor who is on the code drafting committee.

A patient transport vehicle will ferry only stable patients. “This is for situations where you have to transfer a patient from one facility to another for a test, for example,” the doctor said.

The specifications for basic and advanced life support ambulances will be very strict. Only three people other than the patient and the driver will be allowed inside a basic life support ambulance, and one of them must sit beside the driver. Only two will be allowed inside the patient compartment, apart from the patient. Four to six people will be allowed in an advanced life support ambulance.

During minor accidents or even jerks involving an ambulance, the doctor or attendant sitting next to the patient often falls on the patient and causes grievous injury, the doctor said. To prevent such contingencies, seat belts have been made compulsory for all ambulances.

All ambulances (apart from the first responders) must have self-loading stretchers fitted with wheels, which fold and lock once they are put inside the ambulance but can later be used as a pushcart in the hospital. The idea is to protect the patient from vibrations while being lifted into the ambulance.

Asked how the ministry expected to enforce the code, an official said: “Obviously, we should not expect things to change overnight. But once the code is notified, only vehicles that abide by it will be given an ambulance’s traffic rights. Other ‘ambulances’ will be fined for speeding or jumping a signal and so on.”

The drafting committee has 11 members including doctors from AIIMS, the Emergency Management and Research Institute and Apollo, and officials from the National Highway Authority of India.

The Telegraph, 18 June, 2012, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120618/jsp/nation/story_15624165.jsp#.T97ZkReO25w


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